Tesla is allegedly working on a redesign of its popular Model 3 to reduce the vehicle’s complexity and tone down production costs.
The company wants to reduce the number of parts needed to produce the sedan and the redesign could include changes to its exterior and powertrain performance.
The process will occur at Tesla´s factory in Shanghai and the company’s Fremont, California plant. Tesla´s Shanghai Gigafactory will put the redesigned Model 3 into production in the third quarter of 2023, they said.
Tesla is finding ways to cut down costs through simplification and working on a small-car platform that would be half the cost of the Model 3.
‘Over and over, we found parts that are not needed. They were put in there just in case or by mistake. We eliminated so many parts from a car that did nothing,’ Musk said in an interview at a Baron Funds conference earlier in the month.
Morgan Stanley recently sampled Tesla investors and found that Musk’s involvement with Twitter ‘has contributed to negative sentiment momentum in the stock.
Tesla has lost about $500 billion of market cap in the last two months and the stock is down about 20% since Oct. 28, when the Twitter deal went through, the business outlet reports.
Musk’s firm is facing increasing competition in the EV market as more mainstream automakers like China’s BYD, Hyundai, and BMW produce hybrid or all-electric models.
In the third quarter, Tesla made a profit of just over $9,500 for every car sold, compared to roughly $1,300 for Toyota, according to disclosures by both companies. Tesla has always been focused on providing efficiency in its models with minimum cost.
Ed Kim, president of AutoPacific Group, which tracks market trends and production, said the current Model 3 has already been updated from the version that first went on sale in 2017 because of the way Tesla updates battery performance, information, and entertainment options through software, even if it still looks the same.
‘Having said that, consumers still tend to equate visual changes with newness,’ he told Reuters. ‘Tesla knows visually tangible changes are in order.’
‘The upcoming changes that potential customers can see and feel will be very important in ensuring that EV customers still have Tesla at the top of their minds as truly excellent alternatives to Tesla are starting to flood the market,’ he explained.